A Turtle in King Arthur's Court
by B. Murakawa
Summary: Leonardo wakes up on the outskirts of Camelot...but one entirely unlike its traditional counterpart. Peopled with mutants and destined to be ruled over by the heir to the throne, Prince Raphael, this is one medieval city you don't want to get stuck in!
1. Where'd you get those clothes, Donny?

**Rating**: so far, PG

**Summary**: Leonardo wakes up on the outskirts of Camelot--but one entirely unlike its traditional counterpart. Peopled with mutants and destined to be ruled over by the heir to the throne, Prince Raphael, this is one medieval city you don't want to get stuck in! Unluckily for our hero, he has no idea how to get home...

**Pairings**: none yet, but will eventually be Leo+somebody else. Betcha can't guess whooooo!

**Warnings**: none yet that I can think of, but I'll letcha know when anything...objectionable...comes up. Meheheh.

**Disclaimer**: I never have, do not currently, and probably never will own the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That honor goes to Mirage and all those fine people. I do, however, own a lot of comic books, action figures, DVDs and a Raphael plushie...but that's it, really.

**Notes**: just a bit of humor to try to lift my recent depression. I've actually seen a lot of the cartoon and read many of the comics now, so I have a better idea of what's going on...and also a slightly better grasp on the guys' personalities and quirks and such. I feel a little ashamed of my April/Don fic (Chernobyl), now that I've read #22 (V4) and know her real backstory, which is much cooler (and weirder) than mine...so, in addition to cheering myself up, I'm making amends. Enjoy my suffering!

**A Turtle in King Arthur's Court**

_by Becky Murakawa_

Issue 1!

- or -

_Where'd you get those clothes, Donny?_

I swear I will never again eat M&M and shrimp pizza before bedtime.

My (occasionally questionable) eating habits _must_ be to blame for this; it's the only logical explanation. Good grief, I'm starting to sound like Donatello.

This place, frankly, defies all the...the rules of the Universe, or something along those lines. My current location, by the way, is in a shadowy corner of a tavern--melodramatic, I know, but I'm just not used to being able to wander about in the open unheeded by area humans. The fact is, the inhabitants of this place _aren't_ human. My closest "neighbor" is a six foot tall badger, downing a pint of some alcoholic beverage and bantering lightly with his companion, a slender red salamander. I sip at my cider and observe, like a good little ninja. I didn't actually wake up in _this _place--

I can see I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me just start at the beginning.

My name is Leonardo. I am fourteen years old. I began life as a common pet shop turtle--

Oh, you already know that bit. Okay, then, fast forward a little.

Master Splinter has never been a stickler for bedtimes. So long as we aren't too noisy, he allows us pretty much free reign after hours--with the understanding that he won't go easy on us the next morning if we can barely stumble into the _dojo_ due to lack of sleep. My usual nightly routine involves meditation until around eleven or so, after which I typically brush my teeth, say goodnight to Donny if he's still up (Michaelangelo almost without fail falls asleep in front of the television, and Donny, who stays up the latest next to Raphael, puts him in his own bed before retiring for the evening himself), and hit the hay. Friday nights, however, are an entirely different story. Friday nights are our Mikey-designated Horrifically Bloodcurdling Terror Movie Nights of DOOM! Don't be too put off by the long-winded, fanciful name; Mikey can't stand anything scarier than 'Frankenstein' without hiding behind the sofa. We generally just watch old black-and-white movies and gorge on pizza and pop. I think I fell asleep half way through 'The House on Haunted Hill,' a half-eaten slice of M&M and shrimp pizza on the coffee table in front of me, Mikey pressed as close as mutantly possible on one side, and Raph laughing sadistically and slapping my arm on the other.

'Yeah, fascinating,' I'm sure you're thinking. Just wait. It gets better.

I woke up to sunlight on my face and something itchy against my calves. We don't wear our masks or protective gear in the Lair, nor our weapons. Still, I reached for my _katana_ instinctively. Of course, they weren't there. I got into a defensive crouch, ready to pounce.

The air was so clean and fresh it sort of hurt to breathe. All around me, rather than an endless maze of buildings and alleyways, were only recently plowed fields, as far as I could see. The stuff that had been tickling my legs was grass--a few tufts that had apparently managed to survive the plow. And the sky--it was the first time I had ever seen it unobstructed by the urban sprawl. So _big_! I stared up into it and it was like I was staring _down_ into a bottomless bowl of almost painful _BLUE_. By now I had realized that nothing in the near vicinity was going to jump out and attack me--there was simply nowhere to hide in all that space!

"Where the shell _am_ I?" I asked no one in particular.

"Camelot," replied Donatello matter-of-factually.

I whirled around, madly relieved to hear my younger brother's voice--so relieved that I'm afraid I completely lost my cool. I enveloped him in what must have been a shell-bruising hug. He quickly pushed me away and began efficiently brushing off his robes.

Robes?

Yeah, robes.

They were royal purple, obviously expensive, and obviously not ours. The chances of Master Splinter having found four meters of soft, silver embroidered velvet with amethysts lining its hem in our typical supplies-base--the garbage of NYC--without telling any of us, were very slim. Still, it was unmistakably Donny, with his raised eye-ridge and that insufferable expression that just screamed 'I know something you don't know!'

"Where'd you get those clothes, Donny?"

He blinked. He was acting strangely cold, considering the fact that we were standing in the middle of unfamiliar territory with no idea how we'd come to be there...or, at least, _I_ had no idea. He had given the place a name.

"Camelot?" I said, before he could answer my first (actually, second) inquiry. "What d'you mean, 'Camelot'? Like, Knights of the Round Table-Camelot? Excalibur-Camelot?"

"Do you know of any other?" he replied quizzically.

"Well, no. Look, Donny, we have to return those clothes wherever you got 'em--I'm not mad, honest--"

"I should hope not," he said indignantly. He evaded my hands neatly. "Imagine, a lowly farmhand having the nerve to even _propose_ becoming angry with _me_." He said 'me' like it deserved to be in capitals. Like it was a title created especially for him. He was really starting to get on my nerves.

"Donatello," I said sharply, losing patience. "Explain yourself."

He immediately crumpled. "Look, I'm sorry. The arrogance is part of the job description. I'm really trying here! Oh no!" He sighed hopelessly. "Now I'm feeling _sorry_! If my superiors find out, I'll be demoted! Please--please, let me do my thing, and don't interrupt!"

Feeling that I was unlikely to get any information out of him any other way, as he was on the verge of shorting out some internal wires or something, I cautiously nodded my go-ahead.

"Thankyouthankyou_thankyou_!" He coughed once. "Where was I, exactly?"

"My nerve in having proposed becoming angry with you," I said dryly.

"Ah, yes." He swept his extravagant robes around him. It reminded me a little of Batman. Or Dracula. "...With _me_, the great Magician Donatello."

"Do tell," I said.

"Oh, you're really interested?" he said eagerly. "Honestly, farmboy, I wasn't being _entirely_ truthful when I said we were in Camelot--technically, we are only on the outskirts. I am heading there, myself, to train under the great Merlin! My superiors sent me forth from the township of Chell last spring!"

"Ah," I said, head spinning. I was obviously dreaming. "Is Chell very far away? You've been on the road quite a while, Don."

"Um...actually. No. It's not...far, exactly. Quite close, really." My brother shifted nervously under all those robes which, now that I thought of it, he must have been very uncomfortable in. It was a warm day. "I--the truth is, I have a terrible sense of direction, and I've been hopelessly lost." He paused to reflect on his last statement. "Of course, being the wise Magician that I am, I was _intentionally_ hopelessly lost. And, before I forget--I have an awful memory, too, though it's awful _on purpose_, you know--"

"Of course..." This Donatello had the same habit as my Donatello of rambling all around the point he was trying to make.

"--how _do_ you know my name, farmboy? I mean, how did you know it before I said it? Are you--" He gasped. "Could it be that you possess latent magical talents as of yet untapped!" His eyes went wide with excitement. "Statistically, it _is_ unlikely, but I have to say, if I were to discover raw Magician material here in the boonies--or perhaps you are the last descendant of the extinct Atlantians! Oh, what a find!"

I grabbed him firmly. He was too lost in Donny World to complain. "Donny. Calm down, okay? I am, in fact, not a 'farmboy', as you keep assuming. I am..." I hesitated. What if I ripped a hole in, like, the Space-Time Continuum or something?

"Atlantis..." Donny said dreamily.

"I am dreaming all of this," I said coolly. "You are a figment of my imagination. A product of M&M and shrimp pizza and 'The House on Haunted Hill'."

"Dwah?" said Donny intelligently.

"In the real world, you are my little brother. We are training in the art of _ninjitsu_ under our _sensei_, Splinter. At this very moment, if the movie we were watching is, as I suspect, over, you are in your workroom tinkering with an old telescope you found in the junkyard last week with Master Splinter. You do not wear royal purple, silver embroidered, amethyst hemmed robes. And you do not even believe in magic."

"It's all right, farmboy," said Donny after a moment's silence. "You are obviously quite mad. Possibly, you have dreams of grandeur. You probably think you are Prince Raphael, am I right?"

My heart skipped a beat. "P-prince? _Prince_? Raphael is--is--!"

"Oh, don't tell me _he's_ one of your 'brothers', too," Donny said disbelievingly.

"He--he _is_!" I frowned. This was my dream, after all. Why didn't _I_ get to be prince? Not that, I had to admit, Raphael wouldn't make a great prince. He had the imperious, I-know-better-than-thou-so-shut-the-hell-up attitude down pat. Third-in-command. My second. My brother. Just thinking of him made me break out in warm fuzzies, which had never happened before. It was probably the damned _wierdness_ of this entire dream. I knew I had to see him, and now.

"Listen," I said to Donny, who was staring at me, fascinated. "Take me with you to Camelot. That's where Ra--er, Prince Raphael lives, right?"

"Yes!" said Donny cheerfully.

"Can you get me into the castle?"

"No!" he said, just as cheerfully. "I think," he explained, "that you might try to assassinate the Prince. You're mentally unstable."

"No, I--" I rubbed my forehead. The sun was high in the sky now, and the heat was giving me a headache. Donny was sweating under those heavy robes. "I was...testing you. You see, I am actually...er..." I thought back to all the Medieval-period books I had read, mostly for the chivalry, which reminded me of _bushido_. "...I am of a noble but poor family. My father, Splinter, sent me to Camelot to train under a real knight." I racked my brain. "And, um, I heard along the way fantastic tales of a great Magician called Donatello, who has enough power in one finger to blot out the sun! I recognized you as soon as I saw you," I said to Donny, who flushed with pleasure. "But of course, in these times of great tribulation, I had to be sure that you were no mere impostor in the guise of the mighty Donatello. Thus all my misleading words. However! Now I am sure of your identity, and mine has been revealed to you...so, er, to Camelot?"

Donny shrugged, hoisting up his robes. He's actually a little shorter than I am, and they drug the ground. "To Camelot, then!" He paused. "What's your name, by the way?"

Weird as shell, coming from the brother I've known all my life. "Leonardo," I said awkwardly.

"Hm. Leonardo. Leonardo." He said my name like he was tasting it. Apparently, it passed muster. "All right then, soon-to-be Squire Leonardo! As they say, onward ho!"


	2. The Dragon Slayer

**Rating**: PG

**Pairing**: still not telling...come on, it would spoil the surprise

**Warnings**: tight shoes! Poor Donny!

**Disclaimer**: you know, I never even thought to disclaim ownership of Camelot, King Arthur, etc. in the first issue. Are they in the public domain? Alas, I do not know! Either way, I didn't create that cool jazz, and again, don't own the Turtles.

**Notes**: this is very fun to write (alleviates the dark cloud hanging over me--it's like one of those Dollar Tree umbrellas!), and I'm glad so many people have enjoyed the opening "issue"! Thanks to the reviewers especially. You all _rock_ my socks off. Sorry the second issue took so long...lately, I've been slow about my writing. Turtlish, even.

**A Turtle in King Arthur's Court**

_by Becky Murakawa_

Issue 2!

- or -

_The Dragon Slayer_

I was understandably reluctant to enter the city undisguised (and unprotected) as I was, without my _katana_ and gear, but my apprehension quickly changed to wonder when I realized that the inhabitants of Camelot were, in fact, mutants. The shock left me reeling, and Donny picked up on this, though he mistook it for a small town boy's irrational fear of the Big City. Yeah, right.

"You've probably heard grotesque rumors of things that live within the city, in sculleries and outhouses--nasty places like that," Donny said sympathetically, before he caught himself and donned (ha!) his imperious act. "Do not fear, soon-to-be Squire Leonardo. Humans only exist in fairy tales."

"Eh," said I, staring warily at the diminutive mole-like...creatures...running in front of me, waving wooden swords. Children. But definitely not very cute children.

"It's highly improbable that, if they did exist, they would live in Camelot. It's protected by strong magic, and it makes more sense to live in the marshes, don't you think? Less chance of being sighted by normal people."

Needless to say, I was freaked out enough _before_ we reached our destination. I have to admit, it was pretty cool, not getting screamed at simply for being (a charming shade of) green. But still, not an experience I'd like to repeat too often. Being ninja and all. Shadow warrior. Not good with crowds.

I'm a pretty avid reader, and many of my books on the Middle Ages have pictures in them, but I'd never seen a castle in my entire life. And this castle was beyond anything I could ever have imagined.

It is at the very center of Camelot--designed so that, in times of war, townspeople can retreat within the thick castle walls to safety. The walls are made of some clean, white stone, the origin of which I am unsure but which is probably super strong as well as fashionable and, being a product of an M&M and shrimp pizza induced dream, quite possibly capable of melting in your mouth but not in your hand. (I kid.) In any case, each stone is perfectly placed, and the overall construct is sturdy, a worthy fortress. Too bad Raphael gets to be Prince, the bastard.

It took Donatello and me some hours to actually make it that far into the city. By the time we got there, he was limping, having in my dream obviously not been in the habit of strenuous exercise.

"It's these shoes," he said, wincing as he pulled up his robes, revealing a pair of finely crafted boots. "My superiors ordered them a size too small."

"Why," I said rationally, "do you wear shoes at all? We're turtles, Donny."

He gave me a withering stare. "A great Magician without proper footwear? Surely you're joking, soon-to-be Squire."

"You caught me," I said, forcing a grin.

Donny barked a laugh, then quickly sobered up. "It isn't that funny, really."

I had to settle for rolling my eyes in reply, as by this time we had reached the inner city and were in close proximity to the castle, and my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth with amazement. Donny had to pop my gaping mouth shut for me. "Happens to everyone, first time," he assured me.

It occurred to me that this was a very, very detailed dream.

Now, if you recall, I bent the truth a little getting my techno-turned-magic geek brother Donatello, who has no memory of our kinship, to take me to Camelot; I fed him a hastily rehashed version of a common 'medieval' plot device: my father Splinter, a poor nobleman, sent me to Camelot to train under a real knight and, if Donny ever asks for the reasoning behind my 'quest', essentially restore the family honor. You're probably rolling your eyes now in much the same way I was rolling my eyes at Donny's footwear dilemma. I don't blame you. It's a pretty flimsy story, but I wasn't trying for the Newberry, okay? Just a straight line to 'Prince' Raphael and, hopefully, a way out of this dream world. (Since I am currently drowning my sorrows in hot cider in a shady corner of a tavern, you can guess how well this plan worked out.)

I'm sorry. I know I'm jumping around. I'll try to keep it all nice and linear from this point on, okay?

Given the nature of Donatello's information concerning my purpose for being in Camelot, it was no surprise when he offered to direct me to the nearest training facility. I agreed, secretly resolving to infiltrate the royal court that night, come hell or high water...providing this dream lasted that long. I was still hanging on to the vague hope that the Real me might snap out of it any minute now.

We were on our way to above mentioned training facilities, when we ran into a large crowd of mutants, cheering on someone very small, very green, and very familiar. He was brandishing a clunky, Western-style sword and posing for his band of admirers, a huge grin splitting his happy face almost in two. I abandoned Donatello to push my way through the crowd, nodding my apologies to any mutants upon whose toes/claws/flippers I might have stepped. Having the experience with my first brother under my belt, I knew better than to rush up and embrace Michaelangelo, but it was very hard to resist.

He had by this time noticed me and, sheathing his sword (a little awkwardly--he'd never been adept with the _katana_; I suspected that this weapon was for show), sauntered up to me. The mutants on either side of me backed away respectfully.

"Ah, a fellow turtle!" he said warmly, slapping my shell. Hard. I was too happy at seeing him to get really angry, but I did grace him with a pretty nasty glare all the same. "Where're you from, stranger?" He didn't wait for me to answer. "Well, wherever it is, I'm sure my reputation has receded me."

"Preceded," I corrected calmly.

"Right on. Probably, I saved your village slash township slash major port and or trading post from a fiery doom. Probably, you've come all the way to Camelot on your own, tracking me through rain and sleet and snow, all to take my hand--here it is--and say," Michaelangelo took a deep breath and fixed suddenly sincere, worshipful eyes on me. "'Thank you.'"

"Um, no. Probably you didn't, and I haven't," said I uneasily, wiggling out of my insane brother's grip.

"Oh." He rubbed his bare head. "Well then, today is your lucky day, stranger, for it is your Very First Encounter with--"

"The Dragon Slayer!" Donatello leaned around me, grabbing hold of my shell in his excitement. The look on his face just screamed, 'OMG!'

Mikey struck another pose. "The one and only."

"You're a celebrity! I have two of your posters and a lunchbox!"

"This is so weird," I felt inclined to point out. The fact that _Donatello_, the genius, admired _Mikey_, the...Mikey, was enough to completely blow my mind. I was seriously beginning to worry about myself; after all, it was _my_ subconscious that was spewing out this stuff.

"Want an autograph?" Mikey asked. His voice was deeper than I remembered. I realized he was pitching it low for effect.

"Do I!" While Donatello searched his robes frantically for a scrap of paper, I confronted Mikey.

"Dragon Slayer?"

"Yeah," he said. "For a limited time only here in Camelot. Promotional reasons, mainly," he confided. "Usually, not that many dragons try to get into the city. They like little villages with lots of pretty maidens." Mikey grinned. "So do I."

"I can imagine," I sighed.

Donatello finally gave up on his quest for paper. When Mikey saw his crestfallen expression, he offered to sign his arm. Donny seemed to think this was a wonderful idea.

"I'll cast a Protection spell on it," said Donny reverently. "So it'll never wash off."

"Well, I'll catch you men later," Mikey said, stretching lazily. Most of his admirers had dispersed by then, it being near supper time. We took our leave of "The Dragon Slayer," Donatello with a dreamy expression on his face, and me wondering if I'd see my youngest brother again during the course of this crazy dream.

"Oh!" said Donny suddenly, breaking out of his daze. "We'd better run."

"What?"

"Run, Leonardo!" he yelled, and we did. "Training...facilities close...five minutes," he panted out. I had no trouble keeping up with him; in fact, I had some difficulty preventing myself from running ahead. He was winded already, and if we weren't turtles, he'd have been red in the face.

We finally reached the training facilities, which consisted of a series of low, stone buildings with few windows and a prominent stable and weaponry. Donny led me hastily around to a side entrance of one of the buildings. "You have your letters of introduction, right?" he was saying, when we heard a voice raised from the far side of the building. Donatello paled and pulled me into the bushes. Unfortunately, the bushes were the kind with thorns. My shell protected most of me, but my arms and legs were not so fortunate. I gave Donny a half baleful, half questioning look.

"Oroku Saki," he whispered urgently. "Senior Magician, representative of Chell--and he hates me!"


End file.
